ADC characterization based on singular value decomposition

A new method for ADC characterization, based on singular value decomposition, is introduced in this paper. Here, the singular values of the sampled data matrix, directly derived from the measured input data, are used to characterize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and further to estimate the number of effective bits. Various input signals, such as single-tone, dual-tone, or multitone, can be used to obtain accurate estimation results. In addition, the new method avoids the difficulties and problems of the earlier characterization methods such as the sensitivity to the applied sinewave frequency and sampled data sizes, and the spectral leakage. Extensive simulations indicate that the proposed method provides excellent performance with single-tone, dual-tone, and multitone test signals. The proposed method also shows remarkable robustness over a truly wide SNR range: from 5 dB to 200 dB.